


it will come back

by jasondont (minigami)



Series: a million little battles [5]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, M/M, Post-Episode: s04e18 Crisis on Naboo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:27:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24410563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minigami/pseuds/jasondont
Summary: Obi-Wan returns to the Negotiator after faking his death.Cody deals.
Relationships: CC-2224 | Cody/Obi-Wan Kenobi
Series: a million little battles [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1821466
Comments: 8
Kudos: 298





	it will come back

**Author's Note:**

> because we CLEARLY needed another fic about the rako hardeen arc.

The shuttle drops General Kenobi in the main hangar of the _Negotiator_. A door opens, Kenobi steps out, and a second later the airship takes off, back to Skywalker’s Venator. The Jedi himself isn’t there, and that’s… strange. Cody has gotten used to seeing him always at Kenobi’s side, and has come to expect his presence. Kenobi’s lanky shadow, quietly annoying his master to death.  
But when Kenobi steps out of the shuttle he is completely alone, and he stays that way while he crosses the floor towards Cody. His men’s eyes stay on him the whole way, but none of them approach him. Cody doesn’t either. He stays where he is, helmet on and his hands crossed behind his back, Boil at his left. 

Kenobi looks… strange. His hair is the shortest Cody has ever seen on him, his beard barely a reddish shadow on his jaw. He is paler and thinner and his shoulders are tense, but he smiles as always, as if nothing had happened. When he approaches Cody his smile widens for just a second, and then it wavers, flickers. It bleeds its warmth and becomes something else.  
It’s barely an instant. Cody sees it because he’s made a habit of watching his general very closely. He knows his face almost as well as his own, and he is surrounded by copies of the latter every second of every day.  
Kenobi stops right in front of them. He bows his head slightly, still smiling. “Commander Cody. Captain Boil.”  
He looks tired. His eyes are red and there are purple bags under them. Without his beard he looks younger, more fragile.   
“Sir,” he says. He sounds as he always does--he knows. He’s too good at this by now not to. But Kenobi knows him too well, and a minute frown appears between his eyes. He blinks, lowers his gaze. The smile wavers once again.   
At Cody’s left, Boil takes off his helmet. Cody closes his eyes, just an instant, and forces himself not to move.   
“They told us you had been killed,” he says. Not angry, not exactly--at least, not yet. Just confused, and still grieving. “Sir.”   
Cody gives him at least another day.  
Kenobi blinks, lowers his gaze, something very like shame in the curl of his smile. “Well,” he begins. He clearly doesn’t know what to say, but he tries anyway. “Obviously, the reports of my death have been clearly exaggerated.”  
A beat.   
Cody swallows. His hands aren’t trembling. They never do.   
His right gauntlet squeaks.  
“General,” he says. Kenobi looks at him. His hands disappear within the sleeves of his robe. “They are waiting for us on the bridge.”

*

When Obi-Wan was shot, Cody was on the way to another assignment.   
He knows this is not a coincidence. 

He missed his funeral, but that may be for the best. He doesn’t think he would have been allowed to attend, anyway.

*

The bridge meeting goes as they always do. Intelligence reports, casualty lists, problems with the requisition forms. The first few minutes are uncomfortable--nobody knows how to deal with the fact that the general has been dead for nearly a week. But Kenobi plows ahead, all witty asides and gentle sarcasm and quiet confidence, and soon it’s as if he had never left.

Cody is so angry he wants to puke, but he keeps his peace. He occupies his usual place, at Kenobi’s right, and he does his job. He is Marshall Commander, and too many men depend on him. He cannot afford his feelings to get in the way of his duty to them and to the Republic, and so he doesn’t let them.   
He keeps his helmet on and his voice level and his back straight, and he does his fucking job and doesn’t look at Kenobi, because if he does that he’ll do something both of them will regret.

The meeting adjourns. The cruiser is already well into its night cycle, and soon the bridge is deserted except for those assigned to the night shift and Cody. He’s exhausted, and his back and neck hurt, but he’s still got work to do.  
Kenobi stays as well. Cody ignores him, but he can feel his gaze on his face despite the helmet. He wonders what he senses. He’s never understood how exactly the Force works--he’d need to be Force-sensitive for that, he thinks, and he really isn’t--but he knows enough.  
Kenobi must feel his anger, his grief. He also knows Cody--they’ve been working together for years.   
Cody wishes he’d leave him alone.

“Commander,” his voice is quiet. Cody’s fingers stop over his datapad. “May I have a word with you?”  
Cody breathes. It sounds very loud inside his helmet. He wonders what will happen if he tells him that no, he may not. He’d probably leave him alone. He’s never pushed. He never does. They are what they are, and the situation is what it is, but Kenobi’s always tried his best to leave him room to maneuver.

Cody is so very angry.

He nods. Kenobi smiles, small and just a bit sad, and when he exits the bridge, Cody follows him, datapad still in hand.   
They walk side by side for a few minutes through the quiet hallways of the Negotiator. Sometimes they come across a patrol or a busy ensign with his tired eyes focused on his datapad. They don’t go far. Kenobi takes them to one of the private conference rooms in the command floor. There’s a caf machine there, and once they enter the room he approaches it, leaving Cody next to the door.  
He doesn’t ask Cody if he wants some. He just makes him a cup of shitty caf, and another for himself, even though both of them know he very probably won’t even drink it. His reddish hair is so short and so fair Cody can guess at the fragile structure of his skull beneath, and he’s lost weight again, and he was dead and now he is not and he is making him a cup of caf.  
Cody leaves his datapad on the table with a click and, after a second of doubt, he takes off his helmet and leaves it there as well. When Kenobi hears the hollow noise the plasteel makes against the table, he looks at him over his shoulder, expression unreadable, and then he turns back to the machine. 

Cody takes a seat. His armor clatters against the hard plastic of the chair, too loud in the quiet room. He takes off his gauntlets, leaves them next to his helmet, and when Kenobi places his cup of caf next to them he cradles it in his palms. It smells nicer than it tastes, but its warmth is a comfort. Nobody ever told them how cold space would be.   
Kenobi doesn’t sit down. He leans against the table, his caf forgotten next to his hip on its surface and his arms crossed. He looks almost as tired as Cody feels.  
He takes a sip of his drink. It’s way too hot, but the burn helps him focus.  
“You wanted to speak with me, sir,” he says.   
Kenobi sighs. He brushes a hand through his hair, and then makes a face, clearly not used to its absence. It’d be funny if Cody hadn’t actually read the mission report.   
“Yes. Yes I did,” he finally answers. He clears his throat and seems to curl into himself. He turns to Cody. “I wanted to apologize.”

He’s not actually looking at him. His eyes are on him, but they are unfocused. He’s present but distant--he’s hiding.  
Very carefully, Cody leaves his drink on the table.   
“Apologize for what, sir?” he asks, his voice even. Kenobi finally looks at him, at his face. He smiles, small and just slightly bitter, and then he sighs.  
“For letting you believe that I had been assassinated. And for assigning you to the escort mission to Corellia.”  
So that was him as well. Cody closes his eyes and keeps them that way for an instant. 

Cody has had plenty of bad weeks in his short life.   
There was Umbara, and the Zygerria thing, and before that Christophsis, and Geonosis, and so on and so forth. He’s younger than Skywalker’s padawan in nat-born years, but he feels as if he had lived more than one life in the past two. He’s been shot at and bombed and hit and cut, and he’s lost friends, and he’s seen the ones who survive lose a little bit of themselves with every battle they survive.   
He wouldn’t say the last few days are the worst he’s ever had to live through, but that’s just because now the emotion feels cheap, because it was for nothing. All that grief for something that wasn’t real. 

“Cody.”   
Cody opens his eyes. Kenobi is in front of him, his hands hidden inside his sleeves. He clenches his jaw.  
“I am s-”  
“I know you are sorry,” his voice is too loud, but still even. Cody lowers his gaze, looks at his hands. The scarred knuckles, the short nails. The scar on his right palm from that time he fell on a broken window. They hang between his knees, cold and lifeless. “I just. I don’t know what you want me to do. Sir.”   
Kenobi sighs. Cody looks at him again. He’s crossed his arms, and he’s looking through the window to the white-blue of the hyperlane. It makes him look paler, washed out.   
He should be sleeping. He looks so tired.  
“You don’t have to do anything. But I,” Kenobi swallows, and he opens his eyes, and when he looks at Cody it is with a new light in them, “I owe you an apology. What you choose to do with it is up to you.”

*

Skywalker was the one who informed the 212th of the deception. A week after the assassination, the Negotiator already on the way to Mygeeto after Corellia, they received a holocall from Coruscant. The general was perfectly civil and circumspect while he explained the truth about the last few days and relayed to them their new orders.

Cody had never in his life been afraid of a Jedi until that moment, when he had to listen to Skywalker calmly explain how his master had chosen to let everyone he’s close to believe he was dead. 

Cody is an angry person. He knows this. He’s made his peace with it, and he’s used to it: anger doesn’t scare him. The cold, seething rage in Skywalker’s eyes while he told all of them about the Council’s plan and Obi-Wan’s choice to go along with it, however, chilled him to the bone.

*

Cody nods. He presses his scarred palm against his right eye. His head hurts. He’s barely slept in days. Too busy doing his general’s job as well as his own, too busy regretting all the things he could have said and done and now never would.   
He’s never been more tired in his life, and that’s saying something. 

He hears Kenobi sigh.   
“I should have waited until tomorrow. You are clearly exhausted,” he says, his voice so quiet it’s barely a whisper. Cody looks at him, really lets himself just observe without the reserve and the thousand little tricks he usually employs to hide his interest. He’s way too tired to pretend he doesn’t care, that he didn’t grieve him as more than a colleague or a good friend.  
The harsh light of the conference room doesn’t do the general any favours. It washes him out--his eyes look lighter, lifeless, his skin is too pale, his hair an almost mousy brown instead of the familiar auburn. His still growing beard is patchy and honestly kind of ridiculous, and it makes him look years younger, almost his padawan’s age. 

* 

The thing about the whole thing, about the fake assassination and the impersonation and everything else is that Cody understands. He believes the plan was sloppy to the point of cruelty, but he understands why Obi-Wan chose to go along with it.   
Someone had to, and he was the best man for the job, and so he complied and did as he was told. 

*

Cody stands up. He telegraphs all and every of his moves, and he gives Kenobi the choice to move away or leave, but the Jedi doesn’t. He stays where he is, and when Cody grabs his neck and knocks his foreheads together, he grabs his back.  
His hand is very cold. It makes him shiver.

Cody doesn’t close his eyes. They’re so close that he can smell him; the blue-grey of his eyes is everything he can see. When Kenobi blinks, his eyelashes brush Cody’s.  
“Please do not do that again,” he says, his voice hoarse.   
Kenobi’s eyes flutter closed, and he laughs, shivery and low. Cody can feel him shake.  
“I’ll try.”

They stay like that for a few seconds. 

And then Cody lets go.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm jasondont @ tumblr! come talk to me!


End file.
